Ha! Well I never knew that. Clearly the language has been on the slide for much longer than I thought. :)

Hi Matt.

S4L7/8, not sure why you're suggesting this -- can you explain?
Seemed to be consistent with S4/L5. It feels more like a hope than an assertion.
Also, if I may, I'll refer you to your reply to me regarding the use of future tense in S1/L2.

A "green field site"
I know what you're referring to, it's just that 'site' invokes planning applications, for me. Knocks me out of the poem.

S1/L5
I don't think that canting works that well, I'd read it as the stone was already leaning, not in the process of moving from the vertical.
Hadn't picked up on 'slab' before. Raised a smile.

RG

Matt,
All I can say to you is, "I am simply blown away by this."

And to Joe:
This made me laugh out loud, when I haven't had an awful lot to laugh about recently! :D:D

Thank you both, Matt and Joe.

Jayne

I too, like Jayne, “am simply blown away by this.” If I have to be critical—and I’d almost rather not—I’d say with David that you’ve “given in to the sentimentalists at the close.” Your conclusion that there is a way, after all, to “rest more peacefully” in the form of “ashes stored” with loved ones gives the poem its arc and cadence, but I was hoping for something more uncompromising—what, I don’t know.

The wording is exquisite: “the chiselled runes that green against a slab of canting stone,” “some wraith of wordless ache,” the simple sentence fragments, all the no’s, nor’s and not’s. Again I’m straining to be critical, but like Richard, I felt that “green field site” was mildly redundant, and the spondee only draws attention to that. “Green field” teeters between cliché and economic neologism. How about “meadow site”? Beyond that, I’m speechless with admiration.

For me, the poem recalls lines from Pushkin:

…

Although unfeeling bones as soon
would molder anywhere as here,
I’d still lie resting in a tomb
not far from places I hold dear.

Around the entrance to the tomb,
let tender life then play and climb,
and let indifferent nature bloom
and with eternal beauty shine.

https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=35458

Rich, I am assuming that there is some of this ... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cant - in that "canting". That's why I like it so much. Apologies if you're already well beyond me on this point.

David

David, Joe, Pedro, Phil, Jim, Richard, Jayne,

Thanks everyone for your comments!

David,

I'm glad "canting" worked for you, and you picked up the double meaning.

Are you wondering about "aeons" in that the imply too long a timescales? That nothing (a grave, an urn of ashes) will last that long? I think I was imagining him pondering the question of how to spend eternity, rather than the more literal time-span of his physical remains, which could be very short, for example, how long do ashes remain if scattered on land, or in the sea, say?

I think I have given in to the sentimentalists to an extent. The N starts out thinking he doesn't care what happens after he's dead, because he won't be there to experience. He ends up realising he does care, that the thought of it has an emotional impact, but he still doesn't believe he'll be around to experience it, that it'll actually make any difference once he's dead. Does that come across? The caring is more about how he feels now, the emotions he feels while he's alive (necessarily!).

Pedro

Thanks for coming back. If it were the rhyme, it occurs to me that I could swap "plot" and "grave" (from S3L2, two lines above) and have: "her simple churchyard plot" and "her cot-size grave". That sound any better to you?

Phil

I'm glad "canting" is working for you.

Jim,

Thanks. The subject-matter seemed to want a more traditional formal setting.

Richard,

I take your point on "green field site". Googling I see that it's like "brown field site", a term used for a space that's about to have houses built on it. I did think I could go with "meadow site", though doesn't address you dislike of "site" it's not construction terminology. I'll keep thinking.

I happy with future conditional at the close. "It sounds like a hope more than assertion" is fine with me. I've used the simple future for things that are definite, not conditional: he won't be around after he's dead; he won't know the abyss.

With "canting" I'm hoping for a double read: over time the inscription greens with algae and the stone starts to tilt; but also, the stone's inscription is cant.


Jayne,

... and all I can say is "Thank-you very much!". I'm very pleased you liked it.


Carl,

See my response to David above. I do think N is ceding to the sentimentalists, but I don't think the N is quite saying there's actually a way to rest more peacefully. He's not ceding consciousness after death, I think. But if you read it otherwise, let me know.

As I said to Richard, I've thought about "meadow site". But I wonder if I need to say "site" at all. I wonder if I can say something like "hillside field" (or "far-off field" etc). But I wonder then if "field" would be read as "poetic" for graveyard. After all, sheep could wander on a lonely country gravesite. Or maybe I could go with "laid in deep, / wrapped in his cardboard shell", and hope the reader takes from the cardboard coffin that's he's buried in an "ecological" grave site.

Interesting that you see the divided ashes "stored" and not "strewn". I did wonder about "but scatter me among the ones I miss", but there's maybe something about the word "scatter" that seems to work against the sense of being with the loved ones.

And thanks for link to the Pushkin, I can see why you were reminded of it (who is that excellent translator, BTW?!).


Thanks again all,

Matt

The term “greenfield” is usually written as a single word and stressed on the first syllable. The meter actually encourages that stressing, but I wasn’t fooled.

Larkin, Pushkin, but most perfectly and thoroughly: Matt Q. This sentence especially thrills me: No me. I love the repetition with subtle variations.